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Photographs by Russell Lee

Born in Illinois in 1936 Russel Lee (1903 - 1986) was an American photographer and photojournalist and was best recognised for his work with the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Graduating from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania with a degree in chemical engineering, Lee's interest in photography started in 1935 when he started to photograph miners and record conditions in the Pennsylvania coal mines.

Hired by Roy Stryker's Farm Security Administration in fall 1936, Lee hit the road for prolonged periods, travelling throughout Texas and Mexico to capture the plight of tenant farmers, migrant workers and sharecroppers afflicted by the Great Depression.

Lee's distinctive photography, including an extraordinary set of colour photographs of Pie Town, New Mexico, frequently appeared in LIFE, Look and Fortune magazines. As the United States entered World War II in the early 1940s, Lee would document the internment of Japanese Americans before joining Air Transport Comman; taking aerial and ground surveillance photographs. Lee later resigned from the ATC and moved to Austin, Texas in 1947. He worked as a freelance photographer and became the first instructor of photography at the University of Texas in 1965, tenured until his death in 1986.

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